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Book Displays: 10.22 Halloween

eBooks

Berenice by Edgar Allan Poe

ISBN: 9780585065922

Publication Date: 1998

Berenice is a horror short story by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1835. The tale is centered on the death of a young girl, named Berenice, and the mysterious visions of her cousin, Egaeus.

Dracula by Bram Stoker

ISBN: 0585066507

Publication Date: 1998

When Jonathan Harker visits Transylvania to help Count Dracula with the purchase of a London house, he makes a series of horrific discoveries about his client. Soon afterwards, various bizarre incidents unfold in England: an apparently unmanned ship is wrecked off the coast of Whitby; a young woman discovers strange puncture marks on her neck; and the inmate of a lunatic asylum raves about the 'Master' and his imminent arrival.
In Dracula, Bram Stoker created one of the great masterpieces of the horror genre, brilliantly evoking a nightmare world of vampires and vampire hunters and also illuminating the dark corners of Victorian sexuality and desire.

Hop-frog by Edgar Allan Poe

ISBN: 0585206473

Publication Date: 1999

Hop-Frog and his friend Trippetta have been captured by one of the king's generals and brought back to the King as servants. Hop-Frog serves as jester to the king and Trippetta helps to plan and decorate for social events. She is also forced to dance for the king and his court. Both Hop-Frog and Trippetta are dwarves. The King and his ministers enjoy laughing at and abusing Hop-Frog. Even his name is the result of their making fun of the way he walks. When the abuse becomes unbearable, Hop-Frog devises and carries out an ingenious but horrific plan of revenge upon the King and his ministers.

King pest: a tale containing an allegory by Edgar Allan Poe

ISBN: 0585051976

Publication Date: 1998

Most people think of dark and despair and horror stories when they think of Edgar Allen Poe - what many don't realize is that he could be pretty funny, too, when the mood struck him. Take this little tale - in it, a pair of drunken sailors, upon ditching a bill, find themselves in the part of London - near the Thames - which has been shut off due to Plague. There they find a most ... interesting assemblage of characters set up in an undertaker's shop, drinking the various wines, ales and so forth that had been stored underneath. The leader announces himself to be King Pest the I and his five followers have titles that include the word "Pest."

Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe

ISBN: 0585052131

Publication Date: 1998

Poe's amateur detective, C. Auguste Dupin, takes an interest in the murder in Paris of two women. It was terribly brutal but difficult to categorize; there appeared to be no robbery or sexual assault, no obvious reason for the crimes. The newspapers carried sensational headlines. Dupin gets involved because the man arrested for the crimes, Monsieur Le Bon, had previously done him a favour. It becomes a challenge to Dupin.
Get set for a step back in the history of detective fiction that leaves the impression that it was written just a short while ago.

Tales of terror and mystery by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

ISBN: 0585104115

Publication Date: 1996

This volume presents some of Conan Doyle s unduly neglected masterworks. Each begins in a quietly factual way, making all the more dramatic the crescendo of fear and puzzlement that ensues as each new circumstance is revealed. Even without his supremely logical brain child, Sherlock Holmes, Conan Doyle shows that his tales are unbeatable for thrills and excitement.

The fall of the house of Usher and other tales by Edgar Allan Poe

ISBN: 0585005540

Publication Date: 1997

"The Fall .. " recounts the terrible events that befall the last remaining members of the once-illustrious Usher clan before it is -- quite literally -- rent asunder. With amazing economy, Poe plunges the reader into a state of deliciously agonizing suspense. It's a must-read for fans of the golden era of horror writing. "The Fall .." is one of Poe's best known short stories - if not the best.

The cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe

ISBN: 0585065934

Publication Date: 1998

It is set in a nameless Italian city in an unspecified year (possibly during the eighteenth century) and concerns the revenge taken by the narrator on a friend who he claims has insulted him. Like several of Poe's stories, and in keeping with the 19th-century fascination with the subject, the narrative revolves around the possibility of a person being buried alive or enclosed in a small space with not possibility of escape (aka immurement).

The mask of the red death by Edgar Allan Poe

ISBN: 0585065969

Publication Date: 1998

The story follows Prince Prospero's attempts to avoid a dangerous plague known as the Red Death by hiding in his large converted abbey home. He and many other wealthy nobles, hold a masquerade ball using seven rooms in the abbey, each decorated with a different color. The last one is velvet black.
In the midst of their revelry, a mysterious figure disguised as a Red Death victim enters and makes his way through each of the rooms.
The story follows many traditions of Gothic fiction and is often analyzed as an allegory about the inevitability of death, though some critics advise against an allegorical reading. Many different interpretations have been presented, as well as attempts to identify the true nature of the titular disease.

The pit and the pendulum by Edgar Allan Poe

ISBN: 0585297185

Publication Date: 1993

We enter the mind of a prisoner of the Spanish Inquisition. The dank prison room is without light and he begins to feel his way around the walls. Later, as a little light enters the room, he discovers two things: a deep and dangerous pit in the centre into which he had almost fallen when he explored the cell blindly, and a scythe-like pendulum suspended from the ceiling which is slowly descending as it swings back and forth with his body as its target. You'll feel his terror.

The premature burial by Edgar Allan Poe

ISBN: 0585052220

Publication Date: 1998

This is a horror short story on the theme of being buried alive, which was a common fear in this period and Poe took advantage of the public interest. The first-person unnamed narrator describes his struggle with "attacks of the singular disorder which physicians have agreed to term catalepsy," a condition where he randomly falls into a death-like trance. This leads to his fear of being buried alive ("The true wretchedness," he says, is "to be buried while alive."). He awakens one morning to find his worst fears realized!

Cover ArtThe tell-tale heart by Edgar Allan Poe

ISBN: 0585010307

Publication Date: 1993

In this classic psychological thriller, the reader will find many more questions than answers. Even though this is one of Poe's shortest stories, nevertheless it has become one of his most highest regarded works. It is a profound and, at times, ambiguous investigation of the paranoia that may lie within the depths of one man's mind...

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